The thick packets of “production notes” that are handed to journalists on their way into press screenings are usually mind-numbingly boring, but one that I received before a screening of last week contained a factoid that left me chuckling in my seat: it turns out, you see, that Nicolas Winding Refn, who won the best director award at Cannes in May for “Drive” (FilmDistrict, 9/16, R, trailer) — a somber film about a movie stunt driver-by-day/criminal getaway driver-by-night (Ryan Gosling) that reminded me a lot of “Taxi Driver” (1976) and “Collateral” (2004), and features three of the best car chase scenes ever recorded — doesn’t even have a driver’s license!

50 gala and special presentation screenings for the 36th annual Toronto International Film Festival — the annual awards season kick-off, which will run this year from September 8 through the 18 (and receive full on-the-ground coverage from this site) — were announced earlier today.

As Jeff Wellsnotes, it’s somewhat surprising that “Carnage” (Sony Pictures Classics, ?/?, ?, ?) and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (Focus Features, ?/?, ?, trailer) — both of which will be playing at the Venice Film Festival, which overlaps with Toronto — are not among them. Still, the list includes plenty of riches, based on everything that I’ve seen and heard, thus far, and I just hope that there are enough hours in each day that I’m at the fest to see all of the films that I’d like to see.

It was just announced that Kirsten Dunst, the 29-year-old star of Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia” (Magnolia, 11/4, ?, trailer), has won the 2011 Cannes Film Festival’s best actress award, which immediately thrusts her into the forefront of the best actress Oscar discussion. I’m thrilled for Kirsten, whom I have long admired for her underrated acting abilities — see “Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles” (1994), “Dick” (1999), and especially “The Virgin Suicides” (1999), etc. — and whom I came to really like over the course of a few hours that I spent in her company back in December when she was in New York to promote “All Good Things” (2010), another film in which she gives a tremendous performance. Above, I have re-posted the video of a half-hour interview that we conducted following a Peggy Siegal luncheon for the film in which we touch upon all sorts of things, including — towards the end of the conversation — her experiences making “Melancholia” (and Walter Salles’s “On the Road,” which is still seeking domestic distribution).

For the record, here’s a full rundown of all of the big winners at Cannes: